What are the major differences between Tamil and Hindi languages?
Sorry for the length, the answer is a bit lengthy.
Antiquity:
Tamil: More than 8000 years of history.
Hindi: Born in 19th century for political reasons. Just 200 years of history. The name ‘Hindi’ itself is an Arabic word, which means ‘Indian’. It can be easily renamed as ‘Nagari Urdu’ (Urdu written in Nagari script.)
Literature:
Tamil: Millions and millions of written books, poems, songs, dramas, street plays, and in the modern times, films. The literature has touched every aspect of human life. The writings in Tamil are neutral in their nature; i.e. no patriarchal, no feminism. In Tamil, you find no literature or poems written to praise the foreign invaders.
Hindi: The written literature in Hindi (whatever is available) does not discuss anything much beyond love, females, wine, and marriages, and the writings are patriarchal in nature. Most of the literature praises the invaders. and poems were composed to please the Persian, Turkish and Afghan Kings.
Individuality
Tamil: The quality and character of Tamil distinguishes it from other languages. You can’t say Tamil-Telugu or Tamil-Kannada or Tamil-anything because Tamil is distinctly different than other languages.
Hindi: Hindi is often referred to as Hindi-Urdu or Hindusthani as it can’t be separated from Urdu. The uniqueness of Hindi is that it cannot distinguish itself from its’ own dialects.
Official Status in the past:
Tamil: In the past, Tamil has always enjoyed the status of official language in the Courts of various Indian Kings. Many Indian royal kingdoms (Cholas, Cheras, Pandyas and many others) officially worked in Tamil, and used Tamil for official communications.
Hindi: In the past, Hindi has never enjoyed the status of official language. The areas where Hindi is spoken today were always ruled by foreigner invaders, and their official language was Persian. That way, Hindi has always been looked down by the Moguls as well.
Purity:
Tamil: In Tamil, you can easily express any idea or concept without using any loanwords from any other languages in the world. You can easily avoid using loanwords, and still even a layman will totally understand what you are saying. That way, Tamil is high class pure language.
Hindi: Even Hindi scholars don’t call it a pure language. The entire vocabulary of Hindi is based only upon loanwords from Persian and Arabic. If you consciously remove these loanwords, Hindi loses its expression. If you replace the Persian, Turkish and Arabic loanwords with Sanskrit and Prakrit (desi) words, then even a Hindi speaker cannot understand Hindi. That way, Hindi is often called as a fallen language by Hindi scholars themselves!
Inter-Learning:
Tamil: Tamil speakers can learn Hindi easily. There are many Tamilians who are well versed in Hindi as well. Subramaniam Swamy, Hema Malini, Sridevi, are the examples. Many Tamil artistes have worked in the Hindi film industry, and have dubbed for their own selves.
Hindi: It takes HUGE efforts for Hindi speakers to learn Tamil. Unless they’re born / brought up in Tamil Nadu, (like Rangaraj Pandey) and unless they put tremendous efforts, they can’t manage learning it in their entire lifetime. Many Hindi actresses have worked in Tamil films but they’ve often recruited dubbing artistes because they can’t dub in Tamil for themselves.
General Knowledge:
Tamil: Even if many Tamilians do not know how to speak in Hindi, still they usually know that there exists some language called Hindi. Tamilians can easily make out the difference in between Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi languages, just with a little effort.
Hindi: Hindi speakers in general can’t even differentiate in between Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Marathi. (Yes, Marathi too! One Hindi person had once asked me if ‘Sairaat’ was a Tamil movie!! In fact it is a Marathi movie!!! But it seems for the Hindi speakers, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Marathi are the same!!!!)
History:
Tamil: Tamil students study the indigenous history of their own kings like Chola, Chera, Pandya etc. because it is very well documented in Tamil language. They also have a fair knowledge of the history of invasions and rule upon the Hindi belt.
Hindi: Hindi students have no option but to study the history of their invaders: the Arabs, and the Persian, Turkish and Afghan Kings. Unfortunately our education system is such, that the Hindi students do not get to know even an iota of the lively history of South India.
Update 01:
Script:
Tamil: Tamil has its’ own script called Tamil script.
Hindi: Hindi has adopted Devanagari script in circa 1930s. Before that Hindi used to be written in a modified version of the Pero-Arabic script called Hindustani script. (Now that script is called as ‘Urdu’ script.) Mahatma Gandhi and several other leaders advocated the adoption of Urdu script but one man called Purushottam Das Tondon insisted on the usage of Devanagari script and the rejection of the Urdu script. Tondon was introduced to the Devanagari script by the Deshastha Marathas. Devanagari was taken to the Northern India by the royal Marathas. That is how Purushottam Das Tondon came to know about it.
Linguistic Relativity Theory: (The hypothesis of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers' world view or cognition.)
Tamil: A large number of Tamil population is more process oriented. You can see this in all walks of life. Put same goals before Tamil and Hindi speakers, and you’ll notice that generally the Tamil speakers adhere to the procedures to achieve the goal. (This is a only a general observation and there may be exceptions.)
Hindi: A large number of Hindi population is more result oriented. You can see this in all walks of life. Put same goals before Hindi and Tamil speakers, and you’ll notice that generally the Hindi speakers will tend to do twist (they call it ‘jugaad’) the procedures in order to achieve the goal. (This is a only a general observation and there may be exceptions.)
Content Consumption:
Tamil: Tamil films, songs, books, and all forms of arts; in short; Tamil content is loved by Tamil people all over in India. Tamil content is also liked by Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi and some Odia speakers too. (Hindi people also like Tamil content, that’s why we have TV channels dedicated to dubbing Tamil films in Hindi!) In other countries, Tamil content is loved in China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Germany, UK, USA, and many other countries. And I am also counting the non-Tamilians here.
Hindi: Hindi films, songs, and other forms of arts are loved by Hindi people in India, UK, USA, and many other countries. Not many Hindi movies are dubbed in Tamil, although a good number of Hindi movies have been remade in Tamil with small changes. When you count the non-Hindi people, Hindi content has a huge fan following in the countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bangladesh etc. After independence, Hindi books are now printed in Devanagari script, and therefore the books may not be popular in all these countries.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:-
A few commenters have asked if I hate Hindi / Hindi speaking population. Some commenters have concluded that I do hate Hindi/Hindi speakers. No dears, I don’t hate Hindi/Hindi speakers. Why would I? In fact I have utmost respect for Hindi speaking people and I love Hindi and Hindi speakers.
Can you imagine how a great grandfather feels looking at his great grandson? It is sheer joy watching youngsters grow. I get that joy watching Hindi. And well, Hindi can also become 8000 years old in the future after several thousands of years, no? :)
Secondly, I am not a Tamil fanatic. I know both Tamil and Hindi very well (speak / read / write / express scholarly thoughts) therefore I feel comfortable in doing this analysis. You can understand the analysis only if you know both the languages very well, not otherwise.
By
K. JAGADEESH
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